Yes. You do understand. I knew you would. Don’t you see, children’s fantasies are like that-they can afford to be cruel because it’s all only imaginary. I know I for one indulged avidly in the fantasy. We would sit around gleefully imagining the consternation of those fat men in New York, pouring their perspiration out while a bomber circled overhead threatening to destroy them at any moment, and powerless to do anything about it at all! It sounds such a terrible confession to make, but can you believe we all sat around and laughed, just thinking about the expressions on their faces?
Yes, I can see that. It was a game of make-believe.
Oh, my, exactly, yes! You do see-you really do.
Yes, ma’am. I think so. Now, how did this scheme take shape, do you recall? I mean, how did the details develop in your minds?
I’m afraid it’s rather confused in my memory. You don’t hatch a make-believe fantasy full-blown. It grows, rather like a pearl-layer by layer. Detail by detail.
There must have been a kernel. An idea that triggered it.
Well, it must have been the idea-Harold’s idea-that there ought to be a way to get our money by using our own old airplanes. The very airplanes the businessmen had sneered at, as obsolete and useless. It was the attraction of that irony, I think.
And perhaps the idea of proving that a thirty-year-old Flying Fortress wasn’t quite as “useless” as the world thought?
Yes. That’s it.
I think I have a general picture of the origins of the scheme, Mrs. Ryterband. I wonder if we could shift our discussion to some concrete details. There are questions to which we still don’t have answers, and maybe you can help us there.
I’ll be happy to try.
Thank you. One thing that’s troubled us is the bombs your brother had in the airplane. They were real bombs, of course. But the question is, where did he get them?
He bought them. From the Air Force.
Openly?
My, yes. At one of the surplus auctions. Several years ago, actually. Of course he didn’t buy them originally to use them as bombs.
I beg your pardon. What else could they be used for?
Why, scrap metal of course. The Air Force certainly isn’t about to sell real bombs to civilians.
I’m sorry. I’m confused.
The bombs were five-hundred-pound bomb casings, Mr. Skinner. The explosives had been removed, of course. They were simply empty casings. The Air Force sold them for scrap metal. Harold and Charles were always buying scrap metal, by the ton. Those old bomb casings were a good deal less expensive than new steel from a factory.
I’m beginning to clear it up in my mind, Mrs. Ryterband, but I still don’t understand how he obtained the explosives that he put in the bomb casings. I assume that’s what he did?
For anyone who works in industry explosives aren’t that difficult to obtain, Mr. Skinner. I have no idea exactly where or when Harold bought the explosives he packed into these particular bombs. But it should be possible for you to find out. I’m sure he bought it on the open market somewhere and made up a story about demolishing buildings or blasting out a new runway. He was known in the industry. No one would think twice about selling explosives to Harold. Now, as for the detonating devices and the other mechanical parts of the bombs, I’m sure he built those himself, either from the original specifications or from designs of his own. Such work would have been child’s play to Harold.
Yes, I’ve come to understand that much. Now there’s one further question I’d like to put to you. We know, of course, that they must have worked out a highly ingenious escape plan. I think it’s obvious, however, that we still don’t know exactly what that plan consisted of. I’m hoping that this part of the plan was discussed in your presence, as part of the make-believe you all participated in. Was it?
Well, of course. That was crucial to the game, wasn’t it? I mean, there was no point making a plan to steal all that money if you couldn’t get away with it afterward.
Yes, ma’am. Could you tell me the details of that plan?
You don’t have to lean forward so intensely, Mr. Skinner. I never mutter. Do you find it hard to hear me?
Not at all.
That’s better. Now you just sit back in that comfortable chair and I’ll tell you about the escape plan. It really was quite a marvelous scheme. We all contributed to it. I was very happy that my own ideas fitted in so well.
Which ideas were those?
Well, the idea of the window, of course, and the boat.
Perhaps you’d better describe it from the beginning.
Well, now. Let me think. The first problem was to pick a day that would give us the best weather for it.
Partial clouds?
That and the probability of low mist over Long Island Sound. In any case we decided that of course we’d have to wait for a day when those conditions applied.
Isn’t it the case, however, that your husband made an appointment with Mr. Maitland, the banker, two days beforehand?
My husband didn’t make that appointment, Mr. Skinner.
Then who did?
My brother, I’m sure. I don’t know who else could have. But Charles didn’t even know about the scheme until the very morning they put it into effect.
How can you be sure of that?
Because I slept in the same room with Charles that night. In the same bed. If he’d known they were actually going to do this thing that day, don’t you think I’d have known it? Don’t you think at least he’d have been nervous?
He wasn’t nervous at all?
We’d all been a little nervous for months. We were upset by our-our plight, there’s no other word for it, really. But Charles was no more upset or nervous that night than at any other time in the preceding several months. We both slept very well, thank you. In the morning-about half past six-the phone rang, and it was Harold calling from the factory. He wanted to talk to Charles. I put Charles on the line, and I got off. Charles talked to Harold briefly and then told me he had to go out-Harold wanted to see him over at the plant. Charles left the house at about a quarter to seven, and that was the last time I saw him.
Did he seem particularly agitated when he went out?
No. I’m sure Harold didn’t spring it on him until he arrived at the factory. You see, Harold would have done it that way. He’d have known that Charles wouldn’t have gone along with it if he’d had time to think it over. He must have presented it to Charles as a fait accompli. Told him, “You have an appointment at ten o’clock with the banker, Maitland. You’ll have to get right in the car and go.”
And your husband would have gone? Just like that?
Well, we’d been discussing the plan every day for months. We’d rehearsed it in our talks, endlessly. The only thing we didn’t know was that it was real. That Harold had actually rebuilt the bomber and armed it with bombs.
Can we get back to the escape plan, please?
Certainly. We’d worked out the timing very carefully, taking everything into account. Everything. The plane was a B-17C, the long-range model, it could stay airborne at low speeds for up to eleven hours without running out of fuel. It would take off at ten o’clock precisely and arrive over Manhattan within the half hour. There was fuel enough to keep it in the air until nine o’clock that night.
The deadline given by your husband was three o’clock.
That was for the payment of the money. The deadline for the bombs was ten minutes past five.
That gave us a good margin of fuel-nearly four hours.
Go on, please.
Well, around three o’clock Charles would signal Harold by radio that the money had been delivered to his car. Then Charles would drive away with the money while Harold continued to circle over the city to give Charles time to get away with the money.
We know that much. Where did he plan to get away to?
The route was very carefully planned. Charles would cross the Williamsburg Bridge and take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Long Island Expressway and then drive east on Long Island to Route One Oh One, where he would turn south into the Williston Park area and allow himself thirty minutes to lose his pursuit. We assumed he would be followed, you see, in spite of our instructions, and we had studied methods of “shaking a tail,” as they call it. Naturally we realized there was no way to elude the pursuit permanently on the highways, but all we really needed was a few minutes’ invisibility. For Charles, that is. We’d done a good bit of reading-detective novels, mainly. Some of them are quite ingenious, you know. I’ve been addicted to Rex Stout and John D. MacDonald for many years. I was able to find passages in their books which gave us excellent techniques for escaping pursuit by the police or anyone else.
Remarkable.
How’s that?
Nothing, Mrs. Ryterband. Do go on.
Having eluded the police, Charles was to drive his car into a certain two-car garage. Naturally we hadn’t actually gone to Williston Park to select such a garage, but I have to assume that my brother actually did so at some point, without telling us. That morning he must have given Charles the address of the garage. There are a good number of householders in those areas who have garages but don’t have cars of their own, and who therefore rent out their garages to people who want to secure their own cars off the street. We’d talked about renting one of those garages.
So we can assume that’s what Mr. Craycroft actually did.
I’m sure you can, yes. In any case there was to be a second car waiting in that garage. There were to be watertight duffel bags in the second car. As soon as Charles arrived in the garage, he was to transfer the money out of whatever containers it was in, and repack the money into the waterproof bags. This was partly to protect the money, but it was also because we’d read about cases-kidnapping and that sort of crimes-where the police had actually hidden small transmitters in the suitcases that contained the ransom money, so that they could follow the suitcases by radio direction finders.
You’d thought of everything, then.
My, yes. Don’t forget we’d been indulging ourselves with this game for months.
Yes, of course. Well, go on, if you don’t mind.
Yes. Leaving the original suitcases-empty of course-in the original “getaway car,” and transferring the money itself into duffel bags in the second car, Charles would then drive north on Route One Oh One to Port Washington, where the plan called for a rented fishing boat to be waiting at a particular\ dock. Again of course we hadn’t actually rented any boat or tied it up at any real dock. But again we’ve got to assume Harold did these things in secret.
Yes. I see.
The boat had to meet certain requirements. It had to have both sailing masts and fairly powerful engines. To increase its possible range of operation, you see. It didn’t have to be particularly fast, because we weren’t expecting to have to outrun anyone in it, but it did have to be seaworthy in terms of the open ocean, and it had to be fairly small and simple to operate because Harold was never interested in sailing, and that would leave most of the operation of the boat up to Charles and myself. Charles became an accomplished sailor, of course, during his days in Alaska and on the California coast. Until last year, in fact, we had our own twenty-four-footer on Long Island, but we were forced to sell it.
I see. This boat was to have been rented and tied up at a dock in Hempstead Harbor, was it? And Mr. Ryterband would take the money aboard the boat?
Yes. According to our plan it would then be nearly five o’clock, allowing for the time taken by traffic en route and the time used in evading pursuit and changing cars. So Charles would actually be on board the boat at some time between four thirty and four fifty. He would cast off and make for Long Island Sound under engine power, and as soon as he was out of Hempstead Harbor, he would put up sail if the wind was with him. Otherwise he’d use engine power; there wouldn’t be time for tacking against the wind.
I see. Were you supposed to be on board with him?
According to the make-believe plan, yes, I was. As it actually turned out I didn’t even know they were putting the plan into action, so of course I had no idea there was a real boat, let alone that I should be there aboard it. I believe I know what actually happened in their minds, however.
Yes?
It was a perilous voyage they had in mind. I believe Harold intended from the beginning to leave me behind until they had reached their final destination. Then, I think, he hoped that he and Charles would be able to get a secret message to me, and that I would be able to join them.
All right. Let’s leave that subject for the moment and get back to their escape plan. You’ve placed Mr. Ryterband, with the money, aboard this boat in Long Island Sound. Now, what is Mr. Craycroft’s part in it? How do the two men make a rendezvous?
We had worked out the exact compass coordinates on the charts. At five ten-a bit more than two hours after the money was paid-Harold would discontinue circling over Manhattan Island. He would cross the East River above the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges as if he were going to make another circuit in his pattern, but once over Brooklyn he would continue to fly east and then northeast across the heavily populated areas of Long Island.
The idea being that there would be no point along his route where he could be shot down without risking the destruction of a populated area?
Yes. Exactly.
And then?